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Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Space Marvels for 2017

Oh, let's (please) take a break from pondering our current crisis of civilization, and the now explicit war on science. Instead, this time, let us turn our heads to ponder the wonderful cosmos that our children will explore... if we manage to keep a great and brave and thoughtful civilization.My own space news can be found at the bottom. A dinner gathering with cool topics. But first... Fantastic!
Cosmographists have plotted the velocities of hundreds of galaxies within 1.7
billion light years, including all of our galactic super-group.They subtracted the universal expansion and
traced lines of a velocity field.We had
already known that swarms of galaxies were converging on what’s called the
“Shapley Attractor.”But this paper unveils a spectacular discovery named the Dipole
Repeller!The DR is a
region on the opposite side of our super-group that appears to have a repulsive
effect on the velocity field, making the whole thing resemble the pattern of… well… a
dipole.As illustrated in this
remarkable video.

But…
but gravity isn’t supposed to have a repulsive “pole”, right? Well, there is a
void near the Dipole Repeller. So, could just an absence of matter explain… hey, I am
digesting this even as you are. Whoa.(Does anyone else see a resemblance to the human inner ear? Or a chambered nautilus?)

A decaying binary orbit will lead a close pair of stars to collide, and calculations pin it down (maybe) to the year 2022, when a “red nova” may even be visible to the naked eye. In Welcome to the Universe, An Astrophysical Tour, the incomparable Neil deGrasse Tyson gives you a personal tour through the marvels of the cosmos, delving into big picture topics such as quasars, cosmic strings, supermassive black holes, wormholes, time travel... and the possibility of intelligent life out there. Are we part of an infinite multiverse? Tyson illuminates and entertains with glimpses of the latest research into the scale and mysteries of the universe. Download a free ebook: 101 Astronomical Events for 2017 -- from Universe Today. And from Space.com, see the Space Calendar for 2017: listing launches, sky events and more.

== Marvels of our solar system ==

A
study published in Nature supports the growing consensus that Pluto may be one
of a dozen “roofed worlds” in the Solar System, where liquid water churns
beneath protective ice. (In the case of Titan, all of this lies below lakes of
methane, lapping at waxy shorelines.) Unlike Europa, Enceledus and other,
“inner” ocean moons, Pluto’s ocean is
likely to be “rather noxious, very cold, salty and very ammonia-rich—almost a
syrup," said William McKinnon, co-author of the study. Any ‘life’ that developed there would be very
different… though not quite as remarkable as any cryo-beings (or cells) that
might arise in Titanian lakes.

NASA Langley’s concept of an ice shelter on Mars would transport a light, inflatable, double-walled dome, then fill the walls with water melted from nearby buried ores, which we now believe to be plentiful there. The concept would create an ideal radiation protection barrier, when the water re-freezes, and has an added advantage in the fact that it can be transported and deployed easily, then filled with water before anyone arrives. It would also serve as a storage tank for water or maybe even used for rocket fuel. Ideally it would be erected and filled robotically, before a human crew even left Earth. Go Mark Watney! Footage from a cubesat experiment shows potato plants budding in weightlessness, in Mars-like soils, suggesting that a certain movie (and book) may have been on target in its optimism about growing food on the red planet. Providing you can wash out perchlorates and all that. We'll see.

This innovation may enable a rover on Venus! NASA Glenn Research Center built a computer chip that survived Venus-like conditions for an impressive 521 hours, almost 22 days. Conditions that will incinerate electronics with its 872º F temperatures and seize mechanical components with its immense atmospheric pressures. At 90 times the surface pressure of Earth. In 1982, the USSR’s Venera 13 lasted 127 minutes on the Venus surface. Silicon Carbide transistors make the difference.

Last time, I invited Astrid & Greg Bear and Vernor Vinge. This time, my sci fi colleagues Gregory & Elizabeth Benford and Steve Barnes, plus JPL senior planetary scientists Dave and Joy Crisp. The topic? Mars mostly (of course), plus artificial intelligence (AI) plus much else beyond the immediate horizon. Elon served a great dinner and his five boys were terrific, well-mannered fellows. And the rest isn't 'news' so that's it.== Coda ==Did I remember to remind you to murmur, now and then "IAAMOAC"?"I am a member of a civilization."By most standards of wealth and thoughtfulness and accomplishment and gradually rising ethics and everything else, perhaps the first human civilization. Perhaps the first in the Galaxy to escape traps like feudalism. If you have any notions of progress, of wanting your descendants to bestride the stars, then reject the blithering-dopey "cycles of history and "The Fourth Turning" and "we're all doomed" rants of those who would turn away from science and wonder.IAAMOAC. Fight for it.

35 comments:

It IS possible to craft a gravitation theory with a repulsive force. Doing so also tends to create a ‘magnetic’ element as well. I learned one as a grad student and it has some neat features. Start by recognizing that mass (the charge of the theory) could be misunderstood. What if instead of the mass, we should be using an object’s 4-momentum. At low speeds, the time-like vector component with any significant value is the temporal component which is essentially interchangeable with mass. The temporal part is an energy term if you look at the units. There is a famous equation for this. 8)

IF the correct way to represent gravitational ‘charge’ is with the 4-momentum of the object, one gets an attractive, Newtonian theory very easily for all particles with 4-momenta roughly aligned in the forward time direction. If something is going backward, though, it should be repelled by all the stuff going forward.

What was neatest about the theory I learned (theories are a dime a dozen and fun to bake) is that one gets the perihelion shift for Mercury correct via a magnetic term instead of needing to introduce curvature into the theory. One can still have curvature, of course, but the bending of the path for light and perihelion shifts fall out of a theory that looks much like electromagnetism before we even consider curvature.

Alfred Differ:IF the correct way to represent gravitational ‘charge’ is with the 4-momentum of the object, one gets an attractive, Newtonian theory very easily for all particles with 4-momenta roughly aligned in the forward time direction. If something is going backward, though, it should be repelled by all the stuff going forward.

If something is going backwards in time, then would it be repelled in its own point of view, therefore being attracted in ours? Or are you saying it would be repelled in our point of view because it's actually being attracted in its own?

What was neatest about the theory I learned (theories are a dime a dozen and fun to bake) is that one gets the perihelion shift for Mercury correct via a magnetic term instead of needing to introduce curvature into the theory

Ok, now you just made me flash on the scene from Star Trek:TNG in which Data is in the holodeck playing poker with Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking (played by his real life self), and the scene opens with us hearing Hawking telling the punchline to a joke that we haven't heard: "But in that frame of reference, the perihelion of Mercury would be precessing in the opposite direction!"

I've often wondered if there's an actual joke that goes with that punchline, or if it was just a "No soap, radio!" sort of thing.

Now, I'm remembering the rest of the scene, with Einstein messing up on how much he has to throw into the pot after being raised, and Newton berating him, "Can't you do simple arithmetic?" Priceless.

Regarding my posts near the end of the previous comment thread, apologies for misattributing quotes from your comments. I wrote the posts a couple minutes here, a couple minutes there over a couple of hours or more while working and didn't proof read when I was done. Sorry!

The heat-resistant electronics for Venus reminded me of conditions in deep petroleum wells. Many don't realize the temperature at 30,000 feet is pretty hot, maybe 500 degrees F. And mechanical stuff has to happen. A lot of work was done on acoustic data transmission for while-drilling realtime data acquisition simply because electronic stuff failed too often. But the big data companies such as Schlumberger and others developed much of the tech for in-and-out data collection. Even H2S gas in deep holes is encountered, as H2SO4 is seen on Venus.

Relax, it's No Big Deal (NBD) - just a minor memory glitch. Being the king of the Dory Brains, I could hardly criticize, and we're both big boys now.

I'm going to be going off-line for awhile. This community is too much of a distraction from things I need to get done, so I'm taking a hiatus. Can't say how long - that depends on how long it takes for me to get through the backlog.

But before I go, I just wanted to relate one thought about the Dipole Repeller. I'm no physicist, so I' sure the professionals have probably thought of this already. When I watched the video, the first thing that got my attention was not how the gravity field lines resemble magnetic field lines, but the location of the Repeller itself. It overlaps with a Void. They didn't mention the fact that Cosmic Voids are full of dark matter and dark energy, so they may have discovered an important property of DM/DE - that they create negative gravity, which no doubt has something to do with the structure of the Universe. It might also lead to an old science fiction dream technology - anti-gravity.

What makes our civilization so different is that we figured out how to use the vast but limited supply of fossil fuels. It is this unearned bounty form nature that has enabled our civilization to be so wealthy and experience such "progress". It literally powers our civilization and is the source most of our environmental problems and will likely be one of the main reasons future historians will site for decline and fall of our civilization.

If you look at the literature on why societies collapse; environmental problems caused by that society's actions combined with powerful elites who are insulated from the negative consequences of their actions is a deadly combination. Unfortunately, that sounds just like a description of us.

Now we may be able to increase our use of solar, wind and nuclear power, but we have already caused huge environmental problems that will continue to get worse for the foreseeable future. And our powerful and insulated elites will not willingly give up that power and insulation. So, if I was a betting man I would bet that this century we see a ragged stair step downward trajectory in term of wealth, health and justice/fairness.

Alas, Sociotard, the first thing oligarchs will do is pass rules that "what applies to peasants shall not shine on me."

Occam's Comic: There is a difference between useful criticism, shouting at errors so's we can act on them... and stylish, lip-curled cynicism as an excuse for smug laziness. I'll listen to your dour gloomcasting when I see that you are also busting ass to help make it not come true.

Are you at minimum doing the stuff described here?:http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/proxyactivism.html

But even if I didn't it would not change the fact the we are a fossil fuel powered civilization with powerful and well insulated elites. If you want to help our civilization move off the pathway of decline and fall you might want to read up on the literature of why civilizations decline and fall.

occam... I have read far more of that literature than you, my friend, and explored it in great detail and argued with Jared Diamond, whose COLLAPSE you'd doubtless like.

Sure, fossil fuels gave us a rapid leg up. That a good thing can become toxic is a hard lesson for humans. Libertarians cannot grok that profit-incentives and personal wealth are great... up to a point where they poison the system.

But you, OTOH, are just as myopic and tunnel visioned. The ozone layer and whales and sea otters still exist because humans peered ahead, shouted warnings... and other humans grudgingly listened. Kids breathe in LA and eat fish from the river in Pittsburgh. Our ability to actually get things done is prodigious.

"But you, OTOH, are just as myopic and tunnel visioned. The ozone layer and whales and sea otters still exist because humans peered ahead, shouted warnings... and other humans grudgingly listened. Kids breathe in LA and eat fish from the river in Pittsburgh. Our ability to actually get things done is prodigious."

These are minor exceptions. Our civilisation is responsible for between 50 and 100 exctinctions per day, a rate higher than is estimated for any of the 5 great mass extinctions of the past. Total numbers of animals (not species, numbers of creatures) have more than halved since 1970. The fact that we are able to save a handfull of charismatic species that hold a great deal of sentimental value and are of declining economic value is small comfort.

Bah. What is your aim with such dyspeptics moanings, Laurence? To undermine our belief in our ability to do better? Because that is what your kind accomplish. I point to great achievements that were wrought by vigorous effort by tens of millions of sincere and dedicated people, as evidence that an order of magnitude MORE effort, by many more millions might do some more.

You are the one - even if you are right - who is an enemy of action and of our world.

I think Laurence´s remark about dozens of species a day belongs in the ´shouting warnings´ category. Like your convictions about our civilisation, they need to be repeated over and over again, so other humans will grudgingly or willingly listen and take action. Not all shouters have useful ideas for change in the right direction, or the means to do them. Save for proxy activism. But still, they need to be heard.

When they heap scorn on any possible solution proposed, then they belong to the defaitist faction, otherwise I´m willing to listen to their shouts that we need to do more.

'Forseeable future' is always an amusing subject, because some see further than others.

As for S.J.Res 34, it's one of the reasons I'm fighting my city council's attempt to sell off the municipal fiber network.

And as for space, that really does tie into the last article's posts on whether regular people actually comprehend science. I don't think some do, at all. I'm starting to hear more of the 'spend that money here where we have problems' stuff again. Many don't seem to comprehend that there's little way to know which research will pay off, and how. Nor do they seem to comprehend how all that 'useless' space research has changed things for the better. If nothing else, weather satellites and communications improvements have saved enough lives to justify the costs, I think.

The species loss is significant. Much of the problem is the huge number of humans crowding out the environment. The fix is making birth control and education available now. Yes, there is rejection of that idea. Keep on persuading. The bit about running out of power is farfetched. As soon as petroleum and coal get priced out, solar takes over. Solar provides more power per person than current sources. With more energy comes more wealth. To summarize, I speak for birth control and solar power.

Speaking of solar, imagine a world where there is enough energy to make you rich as Croesus and able to use the surplus power to actually clean up some of the mess we've made.

Lamar Smith stated during a house hearing yesterday that Science is known as not being objective (at least in regards to climate change).

http://www.snopes.com/2017/03/29/smith-journal-science-not-objective/

DR. MANN: [Smith] indicated at this conference that he, according to Science, and I am quoting from them, he sees his role in this committee as a tool to advance his political agenda rather than a forum to examine important issues facing the US research community, as a scientists I find this deeply disturbing.

CHAIRMAN SMITH: Who said that?

DR. MANN: This is according to Science Magazine, one of the most respected outlets when it comes to science …

Maybe Laurence wanted to point out that it is myopic to narrowly focus on a few species that have not yet gone extinct, when a broader perspective shows we are in the middle of a mass extinction. And the fundamentals driving the mass extinction are stronger than they have ever been and getting stronger. ( the fundamentals are human population growth and the increase in through put of matter and energy and expansion of space used in human activities on the earth.)

I wonder if elites in past civilizations wanted to be insulated from similar dyspeptic moaning. And if they used confirmation bias to find some cherry picked bits of information to provide them with comforting illusions that prevented them doing the really hard work and sacrifice that might have prevented the decline and fall of their civilization.

I think the emphasis on elites is inaccurate and perhaps a bit of a cop out, especially in the context of modern times. It is not just elites who are addicted to the unearned bounty realized from the use of fossil fuels or who do all they can to insulate themselves from the negative consequences of their actions. The majority of people of every economic demographic are just as guilty of those things as the elites. I think we should give all the non-elites, including most of us here I'm sure, due respect and consider them responsible agents.

The only relevant differences are that elites can have a bigger impact on a per person basis, both negatively and positively, and elites run things. But though elites run things, in many countries the general population has a significant input into determining which elites run things. For example in the US, one of the largest users of energy in the world. How do you get the tens of millions of poor and middle class people, who are just as jealous of their modern luxuries as any elite, perhaps more so on average, to stop voting for people like the Reagans, Bushes and Donald Trumps of the world who always reduce and remove any regulatory obstacles that might inhibit whichever big corporate interests have lobbied (bribed) most successfully from making as much money as possible right now and who cares what happens tomorrow?

It's like the opposite of biting the hand that feeds. The hand that is supposed to feed them keeps biting them, or rather smacking the shit of them, but they still keep going back to the same hand expecting some food. It all comes back to many of the kinds of intricately interconnected issues David has been writing about here since at least Bush Jr's tenure in the White House. Somehow we need to bring about a more educated, more engaged, wider viewing general public.

Darrell sorry but you are wrong. From the French Revolution to Reagonomics and Supply Side, it has always been the middle class that's willing to sacrifice for the long term good, when it comes to taxes or environmentalism and so on. While SOME aristos join in this, they always prove, overall, to be the most grabby and short sighted.

"This essay itself is just a long non sequitur pointing out pretty pictures taken by mostly decades old machinery as proof of continued human advancement. It does read like a sermon. The meat of the argument is in the comments, where all reasonable worries about the future are viciously attacked because they don’t offer solutions. Besides the mind boggling idea that we should only talk about problems after we know how to fix them, the tone of the replies from the author suggests he is struggling with his own denial."(A user's comment left in John Michael Greer's "Men Unlike Gods")http://www.ecosophia.net/men-unlike-gods/#comment-6095

"The telltale line in all this is Brin’s invocation of “wanting your descendants to bestride the stars.” Behind that line lies one of the great archetypal narratives of the recent past, the dream of infinite expansion into outer space. That’s the narrow ideological stance I mentioned a moment ago. As we’ll see in an upcoming post, the recognition that civilizations have a life cycle—they rise, and then fall, and then new ones rise in their places—is far from a prophecy of doom, and it leaves at least as much room for science and wonder as the rigidly linear notion of history Brin evidently prefers. The one thing it doesn’t permit is the claim that humanity is on a one-way track that leads straight from the caves to the stars. That’s an issue, in turn, because interstellar travel plays the same role in the secular religion of progress—the established faith of our age—that the Second Coming of Christ plays in Christian theology."-John Michael Greer, "Men Unlike Gods"http://www.ecosophia.net/men-unlike-gods/

is a scientist, futurist and best-selling author. His novels include Earth, Existence, The Postman, and Kiln People, as well as Hugo Award winners Startide Rising and The Uplift War. The Transparent Society won a Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Assn.